Chapter 1

I never thought I would wake up again.

The banquet hall was filled with guests, and my previous life felt like a distant dream. Yet I knew every moment had been real.

As I stood at the hotel entrance, all I wanted was to cancel this ridiculous homecoming party. A banner that read, "Welcome Back, Sienna! Congratulations on the completion of your studies!" hung prominently nearby.

My mother, Emily Pierce, looked at me with concern. "What's wrong?"

"Mom, I want to call off today's event."

Having been given a second chance, all I wanted was to preserve the Hale family's dignity.

"Don't be ridiculous! Sienna has just returned from abroad! We can't just ignore such an occasion!"

I sighed quietly. "You're right, Mom. I was just joking."

She shot me a sharp look. "Still as thoughtless as ever."

Just then, Sienna's parents, Harold Vaughn and Marissa Jenning, arrived. But my fiancee, Sienna Vaughn, was nowhere to be seen.

Marissa smiled warmly. "Vincent, why do you look so pale?"

Before I could respond, my mother spoke up for me. "He's just nervous about seeing Sienna after so long."

Marissa beamed. My parents and Sienna's parents looked at me with amusement. To them, I was still the naive young man who was lovesick and anxious to see my fiancee. But in truth, I was only thinking about how to gracefully exit this engagement and let Sienna be with her true love.

In my past life, I had been under the false impression that we were in a happy marriage. It wasn't until a family gathering on our anniversary that Sienna showed up with a stack of documents and hurled them straight in my face.

"Vincent, you're bankrupt. You have nothing left to hold over me," she said.

"Had I not treated you well?" I asked.

Sienna fixed a cold stare on me. "Had it not been for you, Jacques and I would never have been separated! You owe me this!"

She pulled over the foreign man, Jacques Castillo, from behind her, their fingers interlaced, and said to me, "It's all over between us."

Then, she stepped aside, and a group of debt collectors swarmed in. They took away everything of value from our house.

Among the documents Sienna had thrown at me were stock transfer papers, a notice of dismissal, and a bankruptcy certificate.

Not only had she taken over Hale Corporation, but she had also taken out 50 million dollars in loans under my name.

When I asked her why she was doing all this, she said, "I can only pursue my own happiness after you're completely ruined!"

It turned out that our three years of marriage had been nothing but an act. To Sienna, it had been a long, bitter act of endurance for this very moment. She wanted to watch me lose everything, to see me utterly destroyed.

"I'm the only one at fault here. Please spare my family."

A smile tugged on Sienna's lips, but her eyes held nothing but coldness. "Try begging on your knees."

I fell to my knees and pleaded, "Please, I beg of you. Spare my parents."

She leaned close and whispered in my ear in an act of what I used to think was intimacy, "Sure. But only if you die."

I looked up to meet her eyes, but in them, I saw only resolve and coldness. So, I made my way to the rooftop. Standing by the ledge, I looked down.

Sienna stood in the shadows below, watching everything with grim satisfaction. She truly wanted me dead.

I leaped. Behind me, I heard my parents scream, "No!"

In my final moments of consciousness, I heard the sound of my parents' weeping and her final whisper in my ear, "They're next."

She had never intended to spare my family.